396 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



had pulled too earnestly the string that worked 

 the shutter and the clumsy contrivance had been 

 torn from the tube of the camera. 



I returned to the cabin where Tom, our boy- 

 miner cook, was frying pancakes for our break- 

 fast. I washed my hands in a basin of ice and 

 water outside the door and thought to warm them 

 in the oven of the stove. To my horror I saw 

 that the oven was half full of dynamite cartridges. 

 To my peremptory order to Tom to remove them 



he exclaimed: 



"There ain't no danger in giant, see this," and 

 taking a stick of the deadly explosive in one hand 

 and a match in the other was about to illustrate 

 his theory when I gave him something else to 

 think about. 



Tom was the pet of the camp and always a joy 

 to me. When I wanted the stovepipe chimney 

 wired to the thirty-foot pole which had been set 

 up for it, it was Tom who volunteered for the 

 job and did it. He loved to scale peaks from 

 which fine views could be had and carry my 

 camera for me. Across the narrow valley from 



